The head of the Free Speech Union has said that critics of “the excesses of the trans rights movement” account for the largest share of people needing his group's help.
Lord Young was responding in the Daily Mail to a report by Big Brother Watch (BBW) that demanded an independent review into laws impacting free speech. According to BBW 62,000 people in Britain were arrested under “vaguely defined” communications laws between 2021 and 2025. Of these, 12,292 were convicted.
The report also takes issue with government attempts to determine which media are “trustworthy” in an attempt to combat “misinformation”, particularly from potentially hostile states.
“Pointing to regimes such as Russia and Iran paints a frightening picture of the disinformation threat - but there is a serious risk that tactics used by the government to fight information wars against Kremlin-backed troll farms could be used to counter what Whitehall sees as mis/disinformation domestically - effectively Brits being wrong online.”
BBW said in a letter to Andy Burnham that there is a “free speech crisis” thanks to the use of “excessively broad” and “poorly defined” online safety laws.
Lord Young, for his part, said, “We’ve defended over 6,500 people since 2020, many of them arrested for social media posts. By far the biggest category in our case database is labelled ‘sex and gender’ – people who’ve got into trouble for criticising the excesses of the trans rights movement.”
He added, “People daren’t say what they think for fear they’ll get a knock on their door by a couple of plainclothes officers wearing rainbow lanyards.”
In related news, a recent poll by More In Common found that a majority of people in Britain (54 per cent) believe that the government does indeed protect free speech, but only when it agrees with the speech in question.
